Terms and conditions

By signing up to this platform, you are agreeing to the terms and conditions outlined by the maintainers and concept owners of Devon Connect - Devon Voluntary Action (DeVA), and the platform providers, Made Open Communications Ltd.

The maintainers of Devon Connect platform are Devon Voluntary Action (DeVA) who manage platform content and users, promotion and communications. Users should contact DeVA in regard to participation with the platform. We are referred to as ‘us’, ‘our’ and ‘we’ in these terms and conditions.

Devon Voluntary Action is a registered charity (no.1158671). Company Number 8711291. The registered address is Sunningmead Community Centre, Lazenby Rd, Wilcombe, Tiverton, EX16 4AL.

The platform providers are Made Open Communications Ltd. They own, develop and supply the software for the delivery of the Devon Connect service by DeVA. Made Open Communications Ltd are a company registered in England and Wales (registration number is 4309700) (VAT number is 821531560). The business address is Richmond House, 37 Edward Street, Truro, TR1 3AJ.

These terms and conditions govern your access to and use of the platform, whether as a guest or registered user. In addition, our Privacy Policy tells you how we process your personal data and our Cookie Policy tells you how we use cookies on this platform.

By accessing, browsing or registering on our platform, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions, and you represent and warrant that you have the right, authority and capacity to enter into this agreement.

You also recognise and agree that Made Open own the Intellectual Property Rights for the technology, the service and all documentation being used to deliver the service. Additionally, you recognise and agree that the DeVA Partners own the Intellectual Property Rights for the Devon Connect concept and branding, as well as the content on the site unless otherwise attributed to another owner, including Made Open, or collected from a free license content database. For further content standards rights please see section 4.

We hereby grant you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, revocable, non-sub licensable and non-transferable right to access and use our platform for your own personal, domestic and non-business purposes.

If you do not agree to all the provisions of this agreement, you must not access or use our platform.

All the points below are an agreement between yourselves and all parties involved in U Connect, unless otherwise stated.

• To use certain features of the platform, you must register for an account.
• You must be 16 years of age or older to register for an account.
• You must provide accurate information about yourself as prompted.
• You agree to immediately notify us of any unauthorized use of your account.
• You agree that we will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to notify us.
• We may amend these terms and conditions from time to time by amending this page.
• You are responsible at all times for complying with the current version of this agreement.
• You agree that your continued use of the platform constitutes acceptance of the latest terms and conditions.
• Our platform is made available to you free of charge.
• We reserve the right to charge for future services.
• We do not guarantee that our platform, or any content in it, will always be available or uninterrupted.
• We do not guarantee that our platform, or any content in it, will always be free from errors or omissions.
• We will try to give you reasonable notice of any major changes.
• We have no obligation to provide you with any support or maintenance in connection with the platform.
• You are responsible for making all arrangements necessary to access our platform.
• All persons who access our platform through your internet connection must comply with this agreement.
• The content on our platform is provided for general information purposes only.
• It is not intended to amount to advice (of any nature) on which you should rely.
• Our platform requires an internet connected device running on the latest two versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
• Our platform works on devices running Internet Explorer 11 but we cannot guarantee best experience.
• Third-party open source software is included within our platform.
• The terms of their open source licence may override some of the terms of this agreement.
• You may stop using this platform at any time.

Whenever you upload content to our platform, or make contact with members of our platform, you must comply with the following terms which constitute our “Acceptable Use Policy”:

You must:

• Use our platform only for lawful purposes and for your own purposes.
• Provide true and accurate information about yourself on the platform.
• Keep your user account details and passwords confidential.
• Include our copyright notice on any references you make to our platform.
• Comply with all technology laws and regulations that apply to the use of our platform.

You must not:

• Use our platform for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us.
• Embed our platform, or any part of it, into other programs without our written permission.
• Make our platform or source code available to any person without our written permission.
• Disassemble, decompile, reverse-engineer or create derivative works of our platform.
• Attempt to contravene section 296A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
• Use the credentials of any person or entity to access the platform.
• Act fraudulently or maliciously.
• Hack into or insert malicious code, including viruses or harmful data, into our platform.
• Add any 3rd party widgets that may add unwanted cookies to the platform.
• Infringe our intellectual property rights.
• Transmit material that is defamatory, offensive or objectionable when using this platform.
• Use the platform in any way that could compromise our systems, security or interfere with other users.
• Collect or harvest any information or data from our service or systems.
• Use our platform to harm or attempt to harm minors in any way (or anybody for that matter).
• Harass or interfere with any other member’s use and enjoyment of the platform.
• Send, upload, download, use or re-use any material which does not comply with our content standards.
• Transmit any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material (spam).
• Suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
• Damage our reputation or take advantage of it.

In addition:

• You have sole responsibility for all content or data which is uploaded by you to our platform.
• You therefore indemnify us for any breach of third-party intellectual property rights or copyright.
• We shall not be responsible, or liable to any third party, for the content posted by you on our platform.
• Any content you upload to our platform will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary.
• All intellectual property rights in the content you upload on our platform shall remain with you (or your relevant licensors).
• You hereby grant us a perpetual, worldwide, royalty free, non-exclusive, transferable licence to use, store, modify, copy, distribute, display and prepare derivative works of such content.
• You hereby warrant to us that you have the full requisite power and authority to grant us such usage rights in the content you upload to our platform.
• You shall be responsible for obtaining and maintaining all licences required for the use of the content you upload to our platform, including payment of all associated licence fees and other costs.

You must comply with the spirit and the letter of the “Content Standards” set out below. These apply to all material which you contribute to our platform and we will determine, in our sole discretion, whether a contribution breaches the Content Standards.

Contributions must:

• Be accurate (where they state facts).
• Be genuinely held (where they state opinions).
• Comply with applicable law in the UK and in any country from which they are posted.

Contributions must not:

• Contain any material which is defamatory of any person.
• Contain any material which is obscene, offensive, hateful, illegal, sexually explicit or inflammatory.
• Promote violence.
• Promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age.
• Infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person.
• Be likely to deceive any person.
• Breach any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence.
• Be threatening, harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person, or invade their privacy.
• Impersonate any person or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person.
• Give the impression that they emanate from us, if this is not the case.

Without prejudice to any other rights or remedies, we may terminate your account immediately by written notice to you:

• If you commit a material or persistent breach of these terms and conditions which you fail to remedy within 14 days.
• If you breach any of our policies on ‘acceptable use’ and ‘content standards’.
• If we terminate, novate or assign any licence or agreement relating to our service.

On termination for any reason:

• All rights granted to you under these terms and conditions shall cease.
• You must immediately cease all activities authorised by these terms and conditions, including your use of our platform.
• We may delete your account from our live databases.
• We will have no liability to you for termination of your rights under this agreement.
• Any donations you may have made through the platform will not be refunded.

Failure to comply with our acceptable use and content standards policies constitutes a material breach of our terms and conditions and may result in our taking all or any of the following actions:

• Immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use our site.
• Immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any posting or material uploaded by you to our site.
• Issue of a warning to you.
• Legal proceedings against you for reimbursement of all costs on an indemnity basis resulting from the breach.
• Further legal action against you.
• Disclosure of such information to law enforcement authorities as we feel is necessary.

This agreement will remain in effect while you use the platform. You agree that we will not be liable to you or to any third party.

You may delete your account at any time, for any reason, by following the instructions on the platform or contacting hello@madeopen.co.uk.

We provide interactive services on our platform such as messaging, chat rooms and/or bulletin boards. Content from within these services is not moderated (other than self-moderated by users) but we do keep a record of all such content on our live databases.

Here’s what you need to know about how we moderate interactive services:

• We are under no obligation to oversee, monitor or moderate any interactive service on our platform.
• If notified of any issues, we will decide in each case whether to intervene or apply moderation.
• We will normally provide you with a means of contacting the moderator, should a concern or difficulty arise.
• The use of our interactive services by a minor is subject to the consent of their parent or guardian.
• We advise parents who permit their children to use an interactive service that moderation is not fool proof.
• We are not liable for any actions that breach of our Acceptable Use Policy and/or the Content Standards.

• You may link to our platform in a way that is fair, legal, does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it.
• We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.
• You must not suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
• You must not establish a link to our platform in any website that is not owned by you.
• The website in which you are linking must comply in all aspects with our Acceptable Use Policy.
• If you wish to make any use of content on our platform other than that set out above, please contact hello@madeopen.co.uk.

Don’t rely on information

• The content on our platform is provided for general information purposes only.
• It is not intended to amount to advice (of any nature) on which you should rely.
• We do not provide any representations, warranties or guarantees with respect to any content published on our platform.

Keep your virus software up to date

• We shall not be liable for any loss or damage to your computer equipment, programs or data due to your use of our platform.
• You should use your own virus protection software.

Links to third-party services

• Third-party websites, services and adverts are not under our control and are provided for your convenience only.
• We do not review, monitor or endorse third-party links and advertisements.
• When you click on any third-party links, the applicable third party’s terms and policies apply.
• We will not be liable for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of third-party services.

Miscellaneous

• We may transfer our rights and obligations under this these terms and conditions to another organisation.
• This will not affect your rights or our obligations.
• We will not have waived our rights against you if we fail to insist that you perform your obligations under this agreement.

Nothing in these terms and conditions shall be construed as excluding or limiting our liability for: (i) death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or (ii) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or (iii) any liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

If you are a business, we will not be liable for any loss of profits or business, business interruption, loss of anticipated savings, loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation or indirect or consequential loss or damage.

If you are an individual, we only provide our platform for domestic and private use. You agree not to use our platform for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.

You acknowledge and agree that we will not be liable or responsible for any failure to perform our obligations under this these terms and conditions that is caused by any act or event beyond our reasonable control.

These terms and conditions, its subject matter and its formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by English law. We both hereby irrevocably agree that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute or claim that arises out of or in connection with these terms and conditions.

If any provision in these terms and conditions is invalid, illegal or unenforceable, then it shall be deemed modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it valid, legal and enforceable. If such modification is not possible, the relevant provision shall be deemed deleted and the remainder of these terms and conditions shall remain in full force and effect.

If you wish to contact us, please email hello@madeopen.co.uk. We will normally confirm receipt by contacting you in writing. If we have to contact you or give you notice in writing, we will do so by email to the address you provide us.